This article critically considers current diagnostic criteria for dementia and reports recommendations approved by at least 80% of experts attending the Third Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia (CCCDTD3). There was consensus that many of the features proposed as essential to a diagnosis of dementia in the 1980s no longer are relevant (for example, the requirements for memory impairment, electroencephalogram and cerebrospinal fluid studies, age-specific exclusions). In addition, other syndromes such as frontotemporal dementia have been recognized and need to inform new dementia criteria. It is also recognized that a diagnosis of depression need not exclude a dementia diagnosis. Other proposals, such as neuropathology should be considered as additional evidence and not as a gold standard or that some people with dementia have prolonged plateaus so that progressive decline need not be a criterion for Alzheimer's disease (AD), were more controversial and did not receive similar support. Given the evidence of the last three decades, there is merit in reconsidering the criteria by which dementia and AD are diagnosed.